


Remember How I Watched You Leave

by evrybodysdarlin



Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen or Pre-Slash, High School, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Underage Smoking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-13 09:20:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29774007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evrybodysdarlin/pseuds/evrybodysdarlin
Summary: "Because Elliot's my boy. Always has been, always will be. You know, sometimes it's just that simple, dawg."--Leon, in a Season 4 deleted sceneElliot and Leon didn't meet for the first time in prison. They met for the first time in high school, when Elliot already needed someone to look out for him and talk to him about pop culture for hours.(Based on a prompt by quendtin on Tumblr)
Relationships: Elliot Alderson/Leon
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	1. Washington Township, 2005

**Author's Note:**

> CONTENT WARNINGS: Underage smoking, lots of swearing, some bullying, one hinted at non-graphic incident of sexual harassment/threatened sexual assault (not toward the main characters). No sexual content. 
> 
> Original prompt by quendtin on Tumblr:  
> "someone write an au where leon and elliot were childhood friends but they'd only see each other at school and leon protected him from bullies but elliot forgot about him and doesnt remember when they meet again in jail right now."
> 
> I went with high school friends, rather than young childhood friends. I saw this prompt today and got insanely inspired for some reason and outlined and wrote for hours! 2 more chapters to come, already planned out. 
> 
> I'm an Elleon shipper, but this fic is honestly pretty gen. I would say at most it's pre-relationship.

WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL  
WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, NJ  
2005  
ELLIOT

Nothing good ever happened at Washington Township High School.

The best times Elliot had ever had there weren’t events at all, but time he stole for himself. The times he ditched class and sneaked into the computer lab during class periods when the lab sat empty. It was his senior year, and he’d already given himself access to the entire school, including the principal’s desktop and the district database. He’d been through the records of every administrator, teacher, and student at the school and he’d found himself nothing but bored and disappointed. Some of the kids had some good grades and some of the flunked out and none of it would matter in ten years, anyway. All of his teachers were underpaid and bored and unhappy (per their emails). The school was nothing but a hamster wheel. 

The good thing was, Elliot was only trapped in the hamster wheel for one more semester, and then he was out. Away from his mother, away from all of the people of Washington Township. Some of them stared at him with pity, knowing he’d lost his dad and his mother was cracked in the head. Most of them ignored him, like he was a ghost walking the town. A few of them stared at him with disgust, as though they could see into his head and could see his own disgust, brimming over. 

Most of the students at the school ignored Elliot entirely. There were a few underclassmen from the computer club who had seen his coding and were obsessed with him, but even they had begun to give up on talking to him for the most part, starting to realize that there wouldn’t be any happy bonding time over the dingy school computers for them. He went to computer club for the computers, not the club.

On the first morning of his last semester of high school, Elliot Alderson fucked up his own invisibility. 

Elliot was going to the bathroom during history class, really just looking for an excuse to leave the pointless class, when he walked down the hallway and saw Kyle Duncan, captain of the basketball team, pressing a freshman girl up against a locker. Elliot didn’t remember the girl’s name. (He didn’t bother to learn most people’s names. He wouldn’t have known Kyle’s name except that he’d been unsuccessful in skipping a few pep rallies, where Kyle was worshiped like a god.) 

Kyle’s hand was sliding up the girl’s skirt and she was giggling, but the giggle sounded jagged and afraid, like a broken wind-up doll. Her eyes were wide and she was smiling but her face was frozen, she was scared, Elliot looked at her and knew she was scared. She wanted to move and couldn’t move, couldn’t move, couldn’t move, knew it wouldn’t matter because he wouldn’t stop, he’d never stop…

Elliot snapped himself out of his trance. “HEY!” 

He was surprised to realize that was his own voice. Now they were both staring at him and he didn’t know what to say. 

“Let her go,” he blurted out weakly. The girl winced. 

“Excuse me, fuckwad?” Kyle growled. 

“Let her go,” Elliot repeated. 

“I need to get back to class,” the girl squeaked out, then scuttled off down the hall, escaping from under Kyle’s arm.

"Hey, baby…” Kyle called after her, protesting, but she went around the corner, away from them. 

“What’s your problem, you scrawny little fucker?” Kyle turned on Elliot. 

“She was scared.” 

“Pssh, she was lucky. Every girl in this school wants to get with me. Again, what’s your fucking problem?” He stepped closer to Elliot and Elliot felt himself shrink back. 

“No one out here but you and me now,” Kyle said lowly, and Elliot froze. He looked at Kyle and black started to close in around the edges of his vision. 

“Hey, now that’s where you’re wrong, Hitler Youth.” 

Elliot was jolted from his trance. Elliot and Kyle both turned and stared at the kid walking toward them. He was tall and gangly and moved like he had fewer bones than most people. He was black, which already made him stand out from most of the kids at the school, and had dreadlocks that fell into his eyes as he sauntered down the hall. He towered over Kyle and Elliot, but as he walked closer, Elliot could see that he was younger than them. 

“And who the fuck are you?” Kyle blustered.

“Oh, you ain’t heard about me?” The kid stopped right up next to them. “I thought everyone here already had.” 

Kyle stared blankly and Elliot took the opportunity to step back from him a little. 

“Why don’t you ask me what I did to get kicked out of my school in Bed-Stuy, motherfucker?” the kid said, sounding somehow casual and threatening at the same time. “Then think about if you want to mess with my boy, here.” 

His boy? Elliot looked at the kid slowly, and the kid gave him a little wink. “Come on, cuz.” He started to stride off, slouching like he didn’t have a care in the world, and Elliot followed, figuring he didn’t have anything to lose. 

“This isn’t over, losers!” Kyle spat, but the kid just held up a lazy peace sign over his shoulder.

“C’mon, man, keep up,” the kid whispered in Elliot’s direction. He led Elliot right into one of the side doors, out into the courtyard where no one was supposed to be during class. 

The kid laughed as the door shut behind them. “Man, did I scare him or what?” 

“Uh, yeah.” Elliot didn’t know what else to say. The kid chuckled again, then held out his hand.

“I’m Leon.” The kid shuffled a little on his feet, restless. “I mean, being totally honest here since we’re bros, that’s not my real name, but I saw a movie and it inspired me, so I’ve been thinking about changing it. What do you think, does it suit me?” 

“Yeah, sure.” Elliot realized that Leon (or whoever he was) still had his hand sticking out at Elliot. Elliot really didn’t like being touched, but he felt pretty indebted to Leon for the rescue, so he hesitantly stuck his hand out as well. Leon gave him a light little sliding high five and released him, and Elliot crammed his hand back into his hoodie pocket. 

“Here’s my question, how does a dude as agreeable as you end up about to throw down with that asshole back there?” 

“He was groping a freshman and didn’t like me telling him to stop.”

“Man, fucking creep, wish you had beat his ass, then.” 

Elliot felt a little swell of satisfaction at Leon’s reply, but then snorted ruefully. “That’s not really how I see a confrontation with him working out.”

Leon smiled. “You ever going to tell me your name?” 

Elliot winced at his own awkwardness, but Leon just smiled again. “I’m Elliot.”

“Elliot,” Leon repeated, his voice low and soothing, and Elliot felt himself relax a little bit for the first time since Kyle had looked at him in the hallway.

Then the bell rang and Elliot jumped. “I guess I better get to class.” He paused. “But, thanks.” 

“No problem, cuz. I’ll see you around, yeah?” 

Elliot nodded and slipped back through the door, ready to blend into the now-crowded hallway, ready to turn invisible again. But he felt a little tinge of regret as he vanished.

WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL  
WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, NJ  
2005  
LEON

Being honest, Leon had noticed Elliot around before. He stood out in the crowd of bland Americana suburbia, stood out in the way that he tried to disappear. Leon noticed his eyes first, his crazy-big eyes, and the way he always walked down the hall alone, just like Leon, a dark shadow.

Leon had always been good at talking to people, but it wasn’t easy being brand new in a place where most people had known each other since grade school. He shot the shit with kids in his classes well enough. He tried to ask a couple of them about the boy in the black hoodie, but no one knew who he was. 

Leon had recognized him when he’d seen him in the hall with that jock asshole. Leon honestly hadn’t known if his bluff to intimidate would work, but it had gone off without a hitch. It’s easy enough to seem hard when you’re the only black kid from Brooklyn in the entire Jersey-ass school. 

Elliot hadn’t seemed too scared, though. Not like he thought Leon was dangerous. More like he was shocked that someone was actually talking to him. _Where did you come from, bro?_ Leon had thought, but not asked. He saw Elliot’s shoulders scrunch up and wanted to tell him to chill out, everything was okay, but he knew that saying that only worked if everything actually was. 

The next time Leon saw Elliot, they were both skipping class again. Leon had asked to go to the bathroom and was taking his sweet time down the hallway, planning not to go back, when he saw Elliot through the window. 

Elliot was in the courtyard where they had spoken before, leaning against a wall, smoking a cigarette, slowly blowing the puffs of smoke out in the chilly early spring breeze. _Man, he looks badass,_ Leon thought. He headed for the door.

“Hey, cuz,” he said as he popped his head out the door. “Can I bum one of those off ya?”

He didn’t really smoke, had only ever tried it a few time to seem cool back in Bed-Stuy, but he’d be damned if he’d miss the chance to smoke with Elliot instead of walking around those nasty school hallways alone. 

“Sure.” Elliot pulled a ragged pack of cigarettes out of his hoodie pocket and held it out to Leon, and Leon took one. Elliot silently offered his lighter as well, and Leon lit up and stuck it into his mouth, trying not to choke as he inhaled. 

“Y’know, I heard these will kill you, cuz,” Leon said, trying to keep his voice from sounding hoarse. 

The corner of Elliot’s mouth quirked up and he silently inhaled. “Then why’d you take one?”

“Well, who said I wanted to be alive?” Leon bullshitted, and Elliot smiled. _Damn, that’s the way to make this kid smile?_ “How’d you get these, anyway? You eighteen already?”

Elliot nodded. “Yeah, but I steal them from my mom most of the time, anyway. She doesn’t notice, she chain smokes all day.” Elliot looked over at him. “Did you really get kicked out of your old school?” 

Leon laughed. “No. I just thought he’d believe me, and I was right, wasn’t I?” 

“So why did you move here?”

“My ma wanted a fresh start. New Jersey is wholesome, ya know.” Elliot grimaced. “You always lived here?” 

Elliot nodded. “Can’t wait to get out.” 

“You a senior?” 

“Yeah. I got a scholarship. NYU for computer engineering.” 

Leon whistled lowly, making himself cough a little. “Damn, cuz, you’re smart like that?” Leon didn’t mean to sound surprised. Elliot just seemed a little more burnout than nerd.

Elliot studied his cigarette. “I wouldn’t say smart. Just good with computers. The computer club sponsor made me apply.” Elliot threw the spent cigarette onto the floor and crushed it with the toe of his faded Converse. “I wanted a way out and I got it, I guess.” 

“Jealous. I’m just a sophomore. Still got two more years in this charming hellhole. Unless my ma picks us up and moves us again.” Leon felt like a stupid kid, talking about Elliot’s scholarship and trying not to choke on cigarette smoke, and he missed New York like an ache in his chest. But Elliot stayed with him for the rest of the class period even though his cigarette was done, turning his face up to the sun and leaning on the wall like it was holding him up, and Leon was happy, watching Elliot listen to him talk about everything and nothing until the bell rang.

WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL  
WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, NJ  
2005  
ELLIOT

Elliot’s powers of invisibility at Washington Township High School were so strong that he managed to avoid Kyle Duncan for a few weeks after their encounter. They didn’t share any classes, and Kyle was easy to notice and avoid in the halls with his entourage that always accompanied him. Elliot never saw that same girl with him again, and he was glad. He passed her in the hall once and she nodded at him, solemn and familiar, and then looked away. He knew that looking at him must just remind her of what had happened with Kyle. He would have looked away, too.

The only people who ever looked at him on purpose at the school were Angela and Leon. They were opposites, in a way. Angela, his best friend since childhood, only spoke to him in passing at school, quick and friendly and bland as she went by with all her friends. At school, you’d never know that they’d run away together as kids, that they’d held hands by their parents’ tombstones, that they’d had sleepovers and made promises about things that would never happen. And Leon, the strange kid he’d just met, acted like they were already old friends. 

Elliot wasn’t quite sure how to feel about it. Leon talked so much, pretty much endlessly. Elliot had thought that he hated people who talked too much. But spending time with Leon had made him realize that he didn’t hate people who talked; he hated people who expected _him_ to talk. Leon never looked at him like he was waiting for something, like Elliot had missed something, like he was doing something wrong. He was happy to fill the silence himself. 

Most of Leon’s conversation was pop culture related, endless opinions about TV shows and books and movies. Sometimes Elliot zoned out, but Leon never seemed to hold it against him. Leon occasionally blurted out things about his life that Elliot filed away in his mind. He had two little sisters. He lived with his mom, but he didn’t say much about her. He was from Brooklyn. He slept on a couch so his little sisters could have the bed. 

Looking for information about Leon on the Internet proved fruitless, even once he’d figured out Leon’s real name. Leon had told him he didn’t even have a computer. His school file showed that he was earning C’s; when Elliot looked at the specific list of grades, he saw a staggering mix of 100’s and missed assignments. He’d listened to Leon analyze Tolstoy while he skipped class and smoked in the courtyard with Elliot. He’d watched Leon ignore the Charles Dickens was assigned for English class and devour Kurt Vonnegut instead. He’d seen Leon arrive at school late with tired eyes. 

When Kyle Duncan finally deigned to notice him again, Elliot didn’t see it coming. 

The computer club sponsor, Mr. Nealy, had roped Elliot and his fellow club members into helping him upgrade all of the computer lab PCs. He did most of the interesting parts, even though Elliot could have done them with his eyes closed. He made the students hold his screwdriver for him, hold a flashlight for him so he could see to connect the small wires, and carry the old and new processors and hard drives from the storage closet to the lab. 

Elliot was walking down the hallway, arms full of new hard drives that Elliot was shocked that Washington Township High School had spent the money for. He was focused on holding the precariously stacked drives when he was startled by the bathroom door next to him swinging open. 

A long, muscular arm reached out and snagged the top hard drive Elliot was carrying, pushing down so that the entire stack crashed out of Elliot’s arms. Elliot jumped at the noise and the sudden motion. Then he saw that the person who had reached out was Kyle. 

Kyle grabbed him by the collar of his hoodie and swung him around, spinning him backwards and pushing him into the bathroom. He shoved Elliot up against the wall, breathing hot air into his face. 

_No, no, no…_

“Did you think I forgot about you, fucker?”

_No, no, no, no, no…_

The blackness was closing in around Elliot. He lost himself. 

When Elliot came back, he saw Kyle slumped on the floor, holding his face, cursing and spitting blood.

“Elliot, Elli, cuz, are you all right?” 

_Leon._

Leon was standing next to Elliot, blocking him from Kyle, blood all over his knuckles and his white T-shirt, standing close to him, but not touching him, holding his hands up like you would facing a wild animal. 

“Leon?” 

“Did he hurt you?” 

“I…” Elliot looked down at himself, touched his face and his arms. He seemed fine. “Uh, no?” 

“You looked crazy when I saw you, man. I never seen you look like that before. You okay?” 

“I don’t know,” Elliot said honestly. He stared at Kyle. “Did you hit him?”

Leon laughed breathily. “Yeah.” He shook his hand out. “You know me and my criminal past.” 

Elliot laughed, too, and it came out hysterical. 

Then the teacher in the room nearest them came out, trying to figure out what all the noise was and gasped when she saw Kyle, and then Mr. Nealy came looking for his hard drives and his top student, and somehow Leon, Elliot, and Kyle ended up sitting in an uncomfortable row in the principal’s office. 

There were no witnesses for what happened, and the only person with visible injuries was Kyle, who insisted that Leon and Elliot had jumped him in the bathroom. Leon argued, explaining that he’d seen Kyle attacking Elliot. Elliot was silent, his mind still spinning, but nodded at Leon’s account, backing him up.

But as Elliot watched the principal listen to Kyle and dismiss Leon, he realized. The school would never punish Kyle. It was basketball season playoffs and he was their star. Making him miss games would inconvenience the whole school. No one would care what happened to Leon or Elliot. Not even their parents, at least based on what Leon had said about his mom and based on Elliot’s entire life experience so far. 

In the end, Elliot and Leon got two weeks of detention, which they spent side by side, reading Vonnegut instead of doing their homework. Kyle got to score the winning three-pointer in the basketball championship game. 

Elliot seethed with the unfairness of it all, the ugliness, that the first new friend he’d made since birth could save him from injury and from terror and could get punished for it, could get one more bad mark on his school record, would be seen as a troublemaker instead of a hero in the eyes of everyone. 

Everyone but Elliot. 

When Elliot tried to thank him, Leon shrugged. “I’d do it all again, cuz. Just like you’d do it for me.” 

Spending two weeks in detention sitting next to Leon wasn’t so bad.


	2. Washington Township, 2005

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elliot and Leon continue hanging out voluntarily and letting each other in, bit by bit...until it's time for Elliot to graduate and leave Washington Township forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: more underage smoking, smoking weed, lots of swearing, a little bit of discussion of troubled home lives/drugs.
> 
> Personal warning from me: please don't take Elliot and Leon in this fic as role models! I'm just trying to write how I think they might have been as teens based on their history established in the show and also in the awesome companion book, _Red Wheelbarrow_
> 
> Context note: the basic facts about Leon having two little sisters that he raised and a mom with a drug problem came from things he told Elliot in _Red Wheelbarrow_.
> 
> Thanks to all who have commented here or on Tumblr, and especially to quendtin for the prompt and the Elleon playlist!

WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL  
WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, NJ  
2005  
LEON

When Leon found the weed in his mom’s room, of course he took it. 

For one thing, she shouldn’t have it in the first place. When she had moved them to Jersey, she had promised them that she was going to be squeaky-clean from now on. She’d been going to work at her new job every day, bringing home groceries, and she’d even started getting up with Alyssa on some of the nights when she woke up screaming from nightmares, instead of Leon having to go in every time. 

So when Leon saw the crumpled bag full of weed crammed into her jewelry box on her dresser, his first reaction was pure anger. His ma had never really been one for weed, that wasn’t what had gotten her into trouble, but it certainly wasn’t a good fucking sign for her supposed straight and narrow. 

His second reaction was pure opportunism. He’d only tried weed once, and it made him cough almost as much as the cigarettes had, plus had made him a little nauseous. He remembered it making him feel calm, though, slow and mellow. Also, how fucking cool would Elliot think he was if he casually brought it to school? 

So Leon swiped the baggie off of his mom’s dresser and jammed it deep into his backpack. He felt awkward and suspicious the whole day, knowing it was in there, but Washington Township High wasn’t a drug sniffing dogs kind of school, so of course no one noticed a thing.

Leon knew that Elliot ate lunch fifth period, when Leon had his boring English class that he had renamed “colonizer literature,” so Leon skipped out on yet another lecture about some British man and crashed Elliot’s lunch period instead. When he saw Elliot leaving the end of the lunch line, he gestured him over. 

“Hey cuz, can I interest you in some outdoor dining today?” Leon asked, wiggling his eyebrows in an attempt to make Elliot smile. (It was pathetic how much time he spent trying to achieve that.)  
He got a tiny quirk of the lips for his effort. “Courtyard?” Elliot asked. 

“No, man, this is a special occasion. Follow me.” Elliot looked around anxiously, like maybe one of the teachers would say something about him leaving the cafeteria, but he put his tray down on an empty table and scooped up his drink and his plate, then hesitantly followed. 

Leon led Elliot out to the bleachers by the football field, which were luckily abandoned. “Come on, underneath.” Leon hunched awkwardly and managed to fit himself under the bleachers, using one of the support bars as an uncomfortable seat. Elliot stared at him quizzically. Under the pressure of his gaze, Leon dug the baggie of weed, now even more crumpled, out of his backpack and held it up. “Care to join me?” 

Elliot’s eyebrows raised, and for a moment Leon felt a sinking feeling in his stomach, thinking that maybe he had freaked Elliot out instead of impressed him. But then Elliot crouched down and slid under the bleachers too, sitting down right next to him on the bar, and started eating his cafeteria pizza, calm as ever. “Sure.”

“I, I’m not trying to peer pressure you, cuz,” Leon hastily added. “Just offering. I seriously don’t care.”

“It’s fine.”

Leon started trying to roll a joint with the rolling papers in the bag, but he had never done it before, so he was utterly failing. Elliot watched him silently, eating pizza and drinking Mountain Dew without commentary. When Leon’s joint fell apart for the third time, Elliot said “Let me try.” He handed Leon his food and took the bag, and he produced a lumpy and lopsided, but passable joint in one try. 

“What the hell, man? You done this before?” Leon was shocked. Elliot nodded. “Oh my god, stop, I know you’re the senior, but I’m supposed to be the cool one here.” That won him an Elliot half-smile, which was like a grin on anyone else. 

“Angela’s new friends do this shit all the time. She taught me.” Elliot pulled his lighter out of his hoodie pocket and lit up the joint expertly, then passed it to Leon, who handed back Elliot’s food, which he awkwardly balanced on his lap. 

Leon took a deep drag of the joint. All of the smoking he had done to give himself an excuse to hang out with Elliot had really built up his ability to inhale without making a fool of himself. “Is Angela that blonde chick you hang out with sometimes?” Elliot nodded. “What’s her deal? She your ex?” 

Elliot winced a little, and Leon regretted his question. 

“No, she only dates assholes,” Elliot said with a hint of bitterness. 

Shit. He had a crush. “So how do you know her?” Leon asked, unable to stop poking the wound. 

“We’ve been friends since we were little kids. We don’t really have anything in common now.” Elliot held out his hand for the joint and Leon gave it up. 

They smoked in silence for a few minutes, and Leon yawned. 

“You seem tired a lot,” Elliot said softly. 

“Yeah, it’s my baby sister, man,” Leon blurted out. “I thought they were supposed to sleep better once they were two, but she’s up almost every night, wanting water, wanting me to look under her bed for monsters. And then the other one gets up at 5 every morning and wants to watch TV. I swear they’re killing me.” He realized he’d gone off on a little rant. He didn’t talk to anyone else at school about the girls, just Elliot. 

“My sister’s almost 14,” Elliot said. Leon was a little startled. Elliot offered so little personal information most of the time that Leon hadn’t even known he had a sister. “She doesn’t wake me up at night, but she cusses me out all the time.” Leon let out a surprised laugh. “She’ll be at this school next year. Could you look out for her when I’m gone?” Elliot asked softly.

Leon got a warm feeling in his chest, being trusted like that. “Of course, Elli! You don’t even need to ask.” Leon paused. “Y’know, I’m not hard like all the other assholes at this school think I am, but I swear, I would kill somebody to protect my baby girls. I know how it is.” Elliot’s silence and his big, moony eyes had a way of making Leon say more than he meant to say. “Sometimes I feel like they’re my kids more than my mom’s.”

“I know how it is,” Elliot said, echoing his own words back at him. He stared at the dirt under the bleachers, rubbing the toe of his Converse into it over and over again, avoiding Leon’s eyes. “She doesn’t need me so much now that she’s older, but…we had some hard times.” He ground the dirt under his shoe into sand. “I just wish we had, like, one fucking parent that was alive and not an asshole.” 

Elliot’s wording almost made Leon laugh for a moment, but then the impact of the words hit him. No wonder Elliot was the way he was, scared and quiet and alone. He knew what it was like. He knew what it was like to look around your house and realize that even if someone else was home, you were still all alone, and there was no one coming for you. 

“Elli.” Leon put his arm around Elliot’s shoulder, hesitant, because he’d seen the way Elliot flinched away from touch, and he’d rather punch himself in the face than scare him. But Elliot stayed still and let his arm stay there until their joint was gone, and Leon was pretty sure that it was the best thing that had happened to him since he’d moved to fucking Jersey.

WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL  
WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, NJ  
2005  
ELLIOT

It took a while for Elliot to wonder why Kyle never tried to mess with him again. At first, he just thought that Kyle was satisfied with how he had managed to twist things all around so that Elliot and Leon were the ones in trouble. Elliot started to notice, though, that Kyle still shot him death glares whenever Elliot didn’t remember to avoid him in the halls.

It didn’t click until the day that Elliot was in the courtyard and saw Leon pass by the hallway windows, probably skipping class on his way to look for him. From his vantage point, Elliot could see that Kyle was coming down the hall on his left, toward Leon, about to round the corner. Leon wouldn’t be able to see him yet. Elliot’s body tensed up and he took a step toward the door, planning to…he wasn’t sure. Probably get in the way and make everything worse, but at least he could warn Leon. 

His stiff muscles didn’t move quickly enough, though, and he saw Leon and Kyle come face to face before he got to the door. He couldn’t hear what they said, but he saw Leon’s face split into a wide, malicious grin that was nothing like the way he smiled at Elliot. And Kyle…Kyle stepped back from Leon, no smile on his face. He looked scared. 

_Fuck._ Leon had somehow scared the shit out of Kyle. Leon had been protecting him all this time. 

Elliot felt like his mind was racing, like an overheating computer, fans whirring. Elliot usually assumed that nobody cared about him, and life usually bore out this assumption. He sometimes worried that people were out to get him. But he had never before had a moment like this, finding out that someone was looking out for him, doing something nice for him and he didn’t even know it. 

Elliot had been right—Leon had been heading out to find him. “Hey, cuz,” Leon said as he sauntered out the glass door to the courtyard, Kyle nowhere to be seen. “Holding up that wall again?” 

Elliot didn’t say anything, but that didn’t seem to bother Leon, as usual. He just joined Elliot in holding up the wall and talked to him about _The Nanny_ until the bell rang. 

Elliot lay on his bed that night, staring at the ceiling, ignoring the sounds of his mother and Darlene shouting at each other, thinking about what he could do to ever pay Leon back, even a little. For scaring Kyle, for standing up for him, for seeing him when no one else did, for talking to him about things he didn’t care about for hours, for never making Elliot talk back, for giving him a smile that he’d never seen him give anyone else…for finding him, again and again and again, on purpose. 

Elliot skipped class to pull Leon out of his lunch period, leading him out to the football field this time. “Ooh, you must have some real contraband here, cuz,” Leon said dramatically as they slipped under the bleachers together. 

“I do.” Elliot relished the impressed look on Leon’s face as he held out the printed stack of papers. 

“What’s this?” Leon took the papers and paged through him, raising his eyebrows as he read his own name at the top. He silently looked through his own school file, which now showed him with perfect attendance, 0 tardies, and no sign at all of 2 weeks of detention or a day of in-school suspension for missing too many classes to hang out with Elliot. 

“I printed it out this morning from the school database. It’s your official student record.” Elliot couldn’t stop the smiling curling up the corners of his lips. 

Leon burst into laughter. “You did this? Cuz, I had no idea you were this kind of criminal mastermind! We’ve been wasting your potential, boy.” He laughed so hard that he bent over at the waist and got tears in his eyes. “Man, I can’t wait to show my ma what an angel I am now that I’m a Jersey boy. Not that she ever takes time to check.” Leon paused. “Hey, why couldn’t you fix my grades? Give me a 100 for that dumbass essay on Hemingway?”

“I thought the teachers might notice if I changed your grades. No one cares enough to check attendance. I could probably fix them on the last day of school, though,” Elliot explained, feeling his face heat. Had this grand gesture not been as effective as he’d hoped? 

Leon laughed even harder. “I’m just messing with you, cuz. You don’t have to do that. Man, you’re amazing, Elliot. So glad I met you.” 

Elliot felt like he was glowing from inside, like he was being really looked at for the first time in his life when Leon smiled at him, and he didn’t know what to do with it, squirmed like a butterfly on a pin at the attention, but he never wanted it to stop. Maybe he was finally learning, a little bit, how to be someone’s friend. 

WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL  
WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, NJ  
2005  
LEON

Seniors got to take their finals early and have their last day of class a few days before everyone else, in yet another instance of seniors being lucky motherfuckers. Leon had looked at the ragged school calendar hung on the front bulletin board and stared at the last date that he’d ever see Elliot.

Elliot had told him that as soon as he got his diploma and packed up his stuff, he was gone. His classes didn’t start until August, but he was planning to head to New York right away, find some place off campus to live, find a part time job. “It’s gonna suck, but it has to be better than here,” Elliot had said, staring at the floor like he always did when he said something honest. “I’m scared that if I don’t go now, I’ll get stuck. You know?” 

Leon knew exactly how Elliot felt, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. 

Leon wanted to make some kind of grand gesture to send Elliot off, something that he’d always remember, something that would make him want to come back, but he couldn’t think of anything. He didn’t have any money, and he didn’t have Elliot’s freaky hacker superpowers. 

In the end, Leon nagged and cajoled his mom until she gave him a little money for the endless hours of babysitting he’d done for the past five years. It was enough for a whole convenience store bag of Sour Patch Kids and a few cans of spray paint. 

On Elliot’s last day, he had finals all morning, which Leon knew that he had to go to and pass if he didn’t want to fuck up his scholarship. Leon attended all of his own classes in a bored haze, then got annoyed at the realization that he’d somehow decided that skipping class wasn’t worth it unless Elliot was skipping with him. 

Elliot was allowed to leave school after his last final, but he waited for Leon instead, hovering right next to the classroom door when Leon came out of the room. Leon felt himself grinning like a fool when he saw him there. Even though he knew that Elliot choosing to voluntarily spend time with him was more than Elliot had ever done for anyone else at the school, sometimes Elliot’s silence got to him a little, made him worry that Leon was basically holding this kid hostage into being his friend. But Elliot waited for him, spent an extra hour in Washington Township High School for him, in a building that Leon knew Elliot would happily watch burn to the ground. 

Sometimes Elliot did something little like that, or something big (like turning Leon from a truant into a model student in the school computers), and Leon knew that every moment of being his friend had been worth it. 

They ended up under the bleachers again, and Elliot gave him his suspicious stare. “What are you planning?”

Leon shoved the massive bag full of Sour Patch Kids into his hands first, and Elliot stared at them like they were a pile of gold. “You remembered?” 

When they’d been shooting the shit one day, they’d planned out a road trip, which was quite ambitious considering that Elliot was leaving and that neither one of them had a fucking car. They’d gotten on the topic of road trip snacks and Leon had gotten the most words he’d ever heard from Elliot that day, a whole rambling paragraph on the sour-sweet joys of Sour Patch Kids. 

“Of course, I did, cuz.” Leon rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed. 

“Y’know, Sour Patch Kids aren’t contraband,” Elliot said suspiciously, and Leon snorted. He pulled the spray paint cans out of his backpack and placed them on Elliot’s lap, and Elliot looked at him even more suspiciously. 

Something clicked in Leon’s mind. “Oh my god, cuz, I’m not trying to huff paint with you! I was thinking you might like to leave your mark on Washington Township High School, that’s all. And I could help?”

Elliot’s suspicious face turned into Leon’s favorite of Elliot’s many tiny smiles. 

There were psyched up seniors running all over the campus, so it was hard to find a secluded spot for their art project. Finally, most of the seniors had left, and the miserable underclassmen had gone back to their classes, so Elliot and Leon had the whole back wall of the football equipment shed to work with. 

Leon spray painted a lot of bullshit, some song lyrics and the car from _Knight Rider_ , which he watched in reruns when he couldn’t sleep. Elliot painted a giant masked face with huge eyebrows and mustache. It looked badass, but weird. “It’s from a movie I watch with my sister. The shittiest movie of all time, and thus our favorite,” Elliot explained, staring up at his handiwork. Leon wondered what the mask meant to him. 

“Y’know, I’m going back to New York when I graduate,” Leon said, realizing how lame it sounded as soon as the words left his mouth. 

“Yeah?” Elliot looked at him in the eyes, which was rare. 

“Yeah. I hate it here.” (He hated it more when he thought about going through it with no Elliot.)

“Who doesn’t?”

“Maybe we’ll see each other then?” Oh, god, the question mark in his voice. 

“Will you come find me?” So quiet. 

“God, of course, cuz.” Leon felt frustration growing in him. Neither one of them had a cell phone. Leon’s mom never paid the phone bill for their landline. Elliot was leaving his house forever. How would they ever find each other?

Leon had given Elliot the number for the payphone down the block from his apartment. He didn’t know what else to do. Elliot didn’t even have a number in New York to give him yet. He’d already told Leon that he never wanted to come back here.

They were out of time. Leon was about to go in for a big bear hug, had even stretched his arms out, willing to risk mortal embarrassment now that he had nothing left to lose, now that he might never see Elliot again, but he hesitated. He knew Elliot was skittish about being touched. He stayed there with his arms outstretched, experiencing the most awkward few moments of his life, before Elliot threw himself into the hug. Elliot’s arms were around his waist, his face was pressed into Leon’s shoulder, he was squeezing him too tight, but Leon never wanted it to end. 

“Thank you,” Elliot whispered into the hood of Leon’s jacket, and Leon’s stomach turned over. Elliot was thanking _him_?

“No, you got nothing to thank me for, cuz. You don’t owe me nothing. You’re my boy, Elliot, right? Always will be.” He was holding Elliot just as tight.

Elliot nodded, his head bouncing against Leon’s shoulder. “Yeah. But still, thank you.” He paused. “Find me, okay? Or I’ll find you.” 

“Of course.” Leon closed his eyes and leaned his cheek on the top of Elliot’s head, swearing it, even as he knew it might never happen. 

But he promised anyway, trying to believe it, hoping it was true, that things might work out for them, for both of them, just this one time.


End file.
